'Relentless': Boss lays out his Portsmouth ambition after pulling off latest Championship upset at Leicester
The Blues have lost just one of their five away fixtures in the Championship this season
John Mousinho is adamant surprise package Pompey’s priority remains ‘avoiding relegation’.
Although the head coach insists their ambition is considerably higher, having inflicted yet another shock result on Championship promotion hopefuls.
The Blues had toppled a previously undefeated Middlesbrough off the table’s summit in the final fixture before the international break.
Indeed, the Foxes fans booed off their team following a 1-1 draw which leaves Pompey in 14th spot - four points adrift of the play-offs.
But Mousinho is determined not to get ‘too carried away’, although, on the other hand, not set sights too low.
Portsmouth boss: We don’t want to think we’ve cracked it
He told The News: ‘We have to keep going, we have to find a way now to capitalise on that, not just be a very, very solid side which is picking up points.
‘We work on doing that going forward, but also we have played some of the top sides in the league away from home, so there are really positive signs.
‘To be honest, I will only ever feel we are an established Championship side once we’re secure in the league in terms of our position - and that's not me just saying it for the sake of it.
‘You can get too carried away both ways and that’s a really important thing from where we are as a football club. We don't want to think we’ve all of a sudden cracked it because we finished 16h last year with a good run.
‘We’ve had a solid start to this year because the league is very tight, the league is relentless and it catches you very, very quickly.
‘There’s nine points available this week. There will be nine points available when we go and play Birmingham, Wrexham and Hull and that makes a huge difference.
‘On the same token, we also need to have the belief that we don’t want to be too negative. I don’t want to go: “It's always about avoiding relegation”. I think it is a priority for this year again.
‘I am not saying our ambition is to just do that, we have to be very wary of the dangers there, but we have to push on as much as we can.’
One defeat in five away games this season
Having been among the worst-performing sides on the road in the Championship last season, the King Power Stadium outcome was another major landmark.
Of their opening five away games in the current campaign, Pompey have lost just once - a 2-1 defeat at Ipswich last month.
They won 1-0 at Oxford United on the first day, while have now drawn at West Brom, Southampton and Leicester, with the latter two having competed in the Premier League last season.
On Saturday, John Swift’s first goal for the Blues capped a superb second-half showing to claim a deserved point, whereas Leicester’s fans were fuming.
‘There are much better signs’
Mousinho added: ‘What’s key is the (away) performances have been good if you look at them across the board.
‘We won at Oxford United on the opening day of the season, West Brom was probably a winning draw, we weren’t going to win the game there, Southampton we definitely could have beaten.
‘On Saturday night we definitely could have won the game, while for Ipswich we were competitive enough without really having a proper go in the first half.
‘There are much better signs than where we were this time last year.’